North Korea Human Rights Violations: Woman Forced To Drown Baby, More

North Korea human rights violations include state sanctioned murder, rape, enslavement, torture, abductions, executions and deliberate starvation according to a United Nations Human Rights Council report.

The report, which is over 400 pages long, details the results of a year-long investigation in which more than 100 former prisoners, escapees, and asylum-seekers were interviewed.

According to reports by CNN, the BBC and Reuters, the alleged atrocities include:

After it as discovered that a malnourished woman gave birth in a North Korean labor camp, she was savagely beaten, then forced to drown her baby by holding the infant’s head in barrel of water until the baby stopped crying and air bubbles formed around its mouth.

Malnourished women prisoners of a work camp who were caught trying to supplement their diet with edible grasses were forced by guards to eat inedible grass and soil.

Malnourished inmates resorted to eating worms and snakes found during work details to quell hunger.

Deceased prisoners’ remains were fed to dogs.

The United Nations commission concluded that there is no parallel to the North Korea human rights violations anywhere in the modern world. They compared the alleged atrocities to those committed by Nazi German under Hitler and the Soviet Union under Stalin.

North Korea has denounced both the charges and the investigative process. According to a BBC report, the North Korean mission to Geneva released this statement about the allegations:

“The DPRK [North Korea] once again makes it clear that the ‘human rights violations’ mentioned in the so-called ‘report’ do not exist in our country.”

North Korean officials referred to the alleged victims interviewed as “human scum.”

It remains to be seen what – if anything – will be done about the allegations. The United Nations Human Rights Council commission that released the report is recommending that North Korean officials, up to and possibly including North Korean President Kim Jong-Un should be held liable and tried before an international criminal court. According to a New York Times report, commission chairman Michael Kirby of Australia said:

“I hope that the international community will be moved by the detail, the amount, the long duration, the great suffering and the many tears that have existed in North Korea to act on the crimes against humanity. Too many times in this building, there are reports but no action. Well, now is a time for action. We can’t say we didn’t know.

These latest allegations make the recent high profile story regarding American Kenneth Bae’s imprisonment in a North Korean labor camp all the more disconcerting. Bae has publicly claimed that he has not been mistreated, but his family and others have objected to possible North Korea human rights violations in which Bae has been forced to perform heavy labor despite serious health problems.

North Korea’s denial of the accusations plays out agains that backdrop of escalating tensions with the communist nation over recent US/South Korean joint military drills conducted in the region.

One of the major potential hurdles the UN commission faces in dispensing justice is the question of whether China – whom the report accuses of aiding and abetting North Korea human rights violations – will exercise its veto power with the UN Council and prevent international prosecution.